I can never understand why so many gardeners think $20 spent on a restaurant dinner that gives you one hour of pleasure is justified, while the same $20 on a plant that gives you years of pleasure is too expensive.

There will always be some individuals for which the statement is actually true, and that is normal. But when most people think that way, society is just out of whack.

It's the herd mentallity.
-- -- -- -- -- Beak away from the herd.

Leftwood said: I can never understand why so many gardeners think $20 spent on a restaurant dinner that gives you one hour of pleasure is justified, while the same $20 on a plant that gives you years of pleasure is too expensive.

-- -- -- -- -- Beak away from the herd.

I fully agree with you, Leftwood: the plant not only givs us visual pleasure for a long period and after that, when the plant dies(or dies back), it will become useful compost - I will not go into details what a dinner ends up being

A $20 plant is not particularly an issue for me -- but a single small plant approaching $100 sure seems excessive (to me). But, again, I am neither a propogater nor collector. If I plan to spend $100 at the nursery, I expect to come home with a flat of plants! My husband and I have a good system - whatever he spends at the golf course I can spend at the nursery, and vice versa.

I think people realize a plant comes from a seed. So they feel they are paying a lot for a sprouted seed. Seldom do I go out and pay just for a meal, the $20.00 is not just paying for the food, but for providing the occasion of being with the company of friends and family. . Also, we tend to buy one meal at a time, but when I buy plants it is seldom done one at a time. Too, a lot of us have bought plants that never made it though a single year, and it often seems the more expensive the plant, the shorter the life span of that plant.

If you really want to get an idea of what you spend on plants in a year, save all of the plant markers or keep a log. The following year, go through your markers or log and see what survived. If I didn't love gardening so much, I would really get discouraged. In one year, I spent $500+ on hosta. The deer were very appreciative, but I had little survive until the next season.

Seedfork said:I think people realize a plant comes from a seed. So they feel they are paying a lot for a sprouted seed. ... Too, a lot of us have bought plants that never made it though a single year, and it often seems the more expensive the plant, the shorter the life span of that plant.

Fortunately, I fixated early on "grow my own from seed". I'll occasionally be tempted by plants at a nursery, but I can buy and trade for a HUGE variety of seeds for t6he price of a FEW plants.

Between being very cheap, and wanting to know that I grew MY plants from SEED, my budget goes into soil conditioners instead of celebrity cultivars. (But some of those cloned plants ARE pretty!)

And then there's the "work" factor... if I buy a plant (for whatever price) it means I have another plant to take care of; if I go out to eat it means I don't have to plan and cook a meal and then clean up the kitchen.

Not that I seem to remember that equation when there's a plant that I want...

As Rick said, starting plants from seed is more fun to me than buying them as plants; however, this plan actually creates more work because then instead of buying a couple of plants I end up with a couple of hundred seedlings. Gardening can be vicious!

Weedwhacker said:And then there's the "work" factor... if I buy a plant (for whatever price) it means I have another plant to take care of;
...
however, this plan actually creates more work because then instead of buying a couple of plants I end up with a couple of hundred seedlings. Gardening can be vicious!

YES! A nice big crop of vigorous seedlings also means we need to find PLACES for each of them!

Starting seeds is exactly like "my eyes are bigger than my stomach": it's EASY to start ten times as many seedlings as I have room for.

And you can only give so many away, though I have a plan for that, after I retire. I'm already saving straight-wall soda bottles from work. I'll turn those into give-away pots. Fill them with bark-rich, hence affordable, potting soil. Pot the seedlings up into nearly-free soda-bottle-pots. Then leave dozens of them off at each nearby over-55 manufactured home park, where people can use them as long-lasting "vases" of flowers, OR plant them out.

TVM, time value money, when I was young I thought I had an infinite amount of time and not much money, now that I'm older I know I do not have an infinite amount of time...but I have a little more money. I would rather spend a little more for a larger plant rather than waiting for the results in a few years. A shortened growing season also factors into the formula.

Leftwood said:

It's the herd mentallity.
-- -- -- -- -- Beak away from the herd.

Sounds like good advice , but herbivores that break away from the herd usually end up eaten by some hungry carnivore.

gardengus said:...usually end up eaten by some hungry carnivore.

But also might avoid the deadly plague that wipes out the rest of the populous

Leftwood said:It's the herd mentallity.
-- -- -- -- -- Break away from the herd.

gardengus said: Sounds like good advice , but herbivores that break away from the herd usually end up eaten by some hungry carnivore.

JamesAcclaims said:
But also might avoid the deadly plague that wipes out the rest of the populous

or the stampede over the cliff.

But yes, I've been beaten up a few times here on these forums for being different.
But that doesn't mean I am wrong! Usually, just misunderstood.

Even now, my point is pleasure versus dollars, and the only valid argument is the added immediate pleasure one might get out of not cooking at home for the restaurant meal. Still, even if one would have cooked ALL day, is anyone here truly going to tell me they only get ONE day's worth of pleasure from from each plant they buy?

For such a person, I acquiesce. But in my eyes, he is an imposter gardener.

-- It's a silly world we live in......

Leftwood said: I can never understand why so many gardeners think $20 spent on a restaurant dinner that gives you one hour of pleasure is justified, while the same $20 on a plant that gives you years of pleasure is too expensive.

There will always be some individuals for which the statement is actually true, and that is normal. But when most people think that way, society is just out of whack.

It's the herd mentallity.
-- -- -- -- -- Break away from the herd.

Well people pee and moan about paying x dollars for gasoline that is near impossible to do without but even more x dollars for bottled water, or exotic coffee slop, that can easily be done without.

Ha ha - I treated myself to a mocha the other day, I think it may have been the 2nd time in 2016. We had to join the worker-bees in the 7 am commute to my son's home (to babysit my 3 mo old grandbaby) and we were early so stopped by a coffee shack.

This seems like a good thread to put it in so I will.

We have a Sounds of the Season channel on cable with some new, to me, versions and songs for Christmas time, most should be erased and a few are actually very, very nice but ANYWAY---- I just heard Beyoncé absolutely destroy -- Silent Night.

Sounds like she is on Quaaludes.

The only thing worse (IMO) is a really bad rendition of the Star Spangled Banner...

Most 'artists' (and I use that term very loosely) since around 2000 fell that they have to put their own unique touch to the old classics. I the vast majority of cases, the producer should route the sound tracks straight to the trash bin. (Does this mean I'm getting old?)

I do think it is a sign of getting old. The younger generation seems to appreciate the new changes. To me so many of the artists use the songs just to demonstrate the range and volume of their voice with little regard for the total "destruction" of the emotional integrity of the song that we older people seem to recognize. However the younger people with no past emotional ties to the songs seem to be more appreciative of the demonstrated ability of the vocalist and actually hear the changes as an improvement!

Seedfork said:I do think it is a sign of getting old. The younger generation seems to appreciate the new changes. To me so many of the artists use the songs just to demonstrate the range and volume of their voice with little regard for the total "destruction" of the emotional integrity of the song that we older people seem to recognize. However the younger people with no past emotional ties to the songs seem to be more appreciative of the demonstrated ability of the vocalist and actually hear the changes as an improvement!

I disagree as over at some rock and roll sites, where music is played, many posters, often who tell when they were born, and are thirty or more years younger than I am, have said they wish they were born twenty to thirty years earlier because rock music, especially the hard rock, died ten years ago and most new stuff is pretty sad.

They have no problem getting other to agree with them and the few who disagree usually give the same type of playing both ends against the middle, things change response.

Having said that, there are a few redos that are sweet but darned few.

I heard Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah absolutely ruined by someone changing all the lyrics to a more 'acceptable' (I guess) version. That just seems wrong to me, akin to stealing.